“What… Where, WHO.” The birds eye view filled her vision once again, this time focused on a seemingly random piece of scrub land. For a few seconds there was no action, at least until another drone flew overhead highlighting something Laura very much wished she hadn’t seen. The creature was comfortably the length of a car and just as wide if not more, its body was held up by six chitinous legs with a pair of massive mothlike wings attached to its back. That would have all been mostly fine if it weren’t for the face, the body of the monstrosity was capped with a dozen or so black eyes as well as a massive pair of spiky mandibles. A moment later her views blurred as it refocused on the ‘warchive.’ It appeared to be some sort of obelisk jutting at an old angle from the crater it had been partially buried in, expanding her view Laura’s heart sank as more creatures were highlighted in red as they skittered back and forth under the view of the recon drones, occasionally leaping at them as they flew overhead cursing Laura’s soul with still images of chitinous maws and fuzzy clawed appendages. “Alan, what in the B-grade Alien Horror hell am I looking at?” [A warchive is an external repository of schematics, information and advanced technology, they are of absolute value for all sides of all conflicts.] “Conflicts? You mean you’re at fucking war with giant moth monsters?” [The Biomorphs are one of several factions seeking to control the galaxy. The Biomorphs operate by assimilating and modifying local biomass to create their units. They are one of the Core’s greatest threats.] Blinking through the literal lore dump Laura decided to press the most important issue.
“So what are we going to do about it Alan?”
[Without the warchive invaluable information will be captured by the enemy. Furthermore, if the biomorph continues to self-replicate it will be impossible to prevent expansion by any meaningful metric.]
“Laura what the hell’s happenin’?” Kaylee jutted in.
“Ahh… Big fucking moth spider for one thing, also alien weapon cache.” Kaylee nodded.
“Well this might be a bad time to let you know but I… Really, REALLY hate spiders.” With those words, Kaylee seemed to shrink into herself somewhat. Noticing the change in demeanor, Laura placed a comforting metallic hand on her friend’s shoulder.
“Look this isn’t our fight, we can let some dumb bug keep some magic obelisk, it doesn’t know where we are, we can just avoid it. Leave it for someone competent to deal with it OH FUCK!” Her attempt to put her friend at ease was interrupted by the very rapid intrusion of a hairy little horror. Little being a rather subjective term considering the thing was about the size of a pig, one with eight clawed legs and a face full of soulless eyes. The monstrosity was sailing through the air towards the two humans. Without thinking Laura shoved her friend sideways, bringing her metallic fist upward towards the airborne horror. There was a crack as fist met face, the force of the impact sending Laura stumbling backwards. The creature, though dazed was already on its feet and pounced forward once again. Laura raised her arm in a clumsy block. The force overcame her already unstable balance and tipped her to the ground, head cracking painfully against a rock. Clicking the spider thing lunged at her throat with its mandibles and Laura only barely managed to leverage it away. Black fangs smashing together mere inches from her face. Yelling Laura threw it off of her sending it bouncing off the dirt.
“Alan, what the fuck do I do?” She bellowed as her foe scrabbled to its feet in possibly the most nightmarish way a creature of its appearance could move.
[Deploying weapon]. There was an electronic whir and Laura suddenly found a very large ‘pistol’ rapidly assembling itself in her palm. [Weapon charged and ready commander.] Swinging the device upwards, Laura clumsily aimed the device towards the now-righted spider and fired. There was an electric shriek, pop like a water balloon. And then silence. Opening her eyes, Laura saw a steaming puddle of green goop where the bug had once been. Glancing up Laura found Kaylee now pressed up backwards, an abject look of terror plastered over her face.
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“Hey, hey K you all good?” Kaylee’s eyes shot from the remains of the biomorph to her friend’s face.
“Laura.” Kaylee stuttered. “We need to go now.” Laura nodded, lifting her friend upright while at the same time opening the bird's eye view and winced. Red signatures had lit up all over the drone’s detection zone and were all heading directly for her base.
“Kaylee, you can stand can’t you,” Laura stated and her friend nodded dumbly.
“OK get going, you should have a straight shot.”
“What about you?” Kaylee squeaked. Laura grinned and raised her already glowing hand. “Just a sec, I gotta leave a note y’know.”
With a whine, the fabricator started again, as it began to produce a new drone from the list. Whilst this was happening Laura set about printing a third energy collector along with a second mine, while she definitely didn’t have the resources or the time to repel the veritable wave of claws and teeth that was about to come crashing down upon her position, as a result, the only tactic was delaying. With a far throatier whine the first of the Basic Combat Drones lifted off, a black gun unfolding from its belly as it did. It was soon joined by a second the third and more until over a dozen were hanging in the air right above Laura’s head. Just as the last drone rose from the assembly line there was a skittering, with a grin Laura raised her hand and waved her metal hand, as the first of the critters began to appear from the underbrush, Laura’s new toys burst into action, fanning out into a battle line and unleashing a barrage of energy blasts on the encroaching enemy force, bugs popping in a foul tide of viscera Laura laughed as another flight of drones formed up behind her. she mentally commanded them forward, black forms streaking over the canopy unleashing their mechanical wrath upon the monsters below them, their course singled in on the bugs’ commander. The drones came down on it, energy bolts peppering the creature in a hail of azure death and for a moment Laura wondered if she could win it here, that there would be no need to retreat. And then she looked at the drones’ stats. Besides the list of metal and energy requirements, there was a whole host of other stats from speed to subspace relay range, and then she got to offensive weapons.
Damage:10
Ammo Capacity: 10.
With a horrible sinking feeling Laura brought up the display, searching for an assessment of her foe’s ‘health’. Her hopes of a quick victory were quickly quashed. “two fucking thousand? Fuck.” A moment later she swore even louder as a drone reported expenditure, then another and another as the barrage of fire slowly whittled down to a pathetic spatter of bolts from the few drones with some leftover juice. Hissing the moth creature rose from where it had been curled protectively and shook its wings. With a growing pit of dread, Laura watched as the moth’s abdomen swelled, four armoured tentacles, their heads expanding steadily with an unnerving green glow. And then they burst, blasting globules of sparking green… goo? The first volley struck true, the goo bursting, bathing the drones they hit along with those in the immediate vicinity, destroying half the flight in a single volley. With a victorious shriek, it stretched its wings and with a singular powerful beat launched itself skywards. The surviving drones trailed after it, still following their last command despite their expended ammo cells. With a yelp Laura turned and bolted, ordering all drones still alive to follow her as she dashed into the undergrowth, the monsters following close on her tail. At first Laura thought the commander had taken to retreating, licking its wounds. Well apparently, not because the thing came crashing down right in the middle of her little base, the landing smashing the two energy collectors into a cloud of sparkling shards, it then turned on the fabricator. A green bolt turned it into slag a moment later, the mines followed a moment later in two more sparking flashes. Laura swore again and issued a new command to her drones. The whine of their rotors spiking as they reversed their flight, hurtling back towards the crumbling base while Laura continued her mad dash for the van. Somewhere in the distance, there was a crack and the shooting fell silent, still in a dead sprint Laura burst from the underbrush about 50 feet, bolting the final distance, ripping the van’s door open and diving headfirst inside. A wild-eyed Kaylee already in the driver’s seat nursing a wound on her shoulder.
“Shit K, what happened?” Kaylee shook her head as she put the van into gear.
“I got bit on the way, I’m fine.”